362 The Marketing Book
rewards based on sales volumes rather than
relationship performance. The role of the sales-
person seems to have moved away from tradi-
tional aggressive and persuasive selling, to a
new role of ‘relationship manager’ and, in
practice, we are witnessing a tendency to
change the sales lexicon from salesforce to sales
counsellors, professional representatives or
sales consultants (Manning and Reece, 1992;
DeCormier and Jobber, 1993). Perhaps the
change in the title is designed to facilitate the
transition of the salesforce’s tasks from selling
to advising and counselling, from talking to
listening and from pushing to helping, as
suggested by Pettijohn et al. (1995). Recent
evidence suggests that often the idea of syner-
gistic relationships and partnerships is slower
than hoped for by participants. The expected
benefits from developing closer relationships
also fail to materialize in the ways expected
(Marsh, 2000). This transition is not only a
matter of title. The new reality of relationship
marketing directs salespeople and sales man-
agers to develop long-lasting relationships with
their customers based on mutual trust and
commitment (Morgan and Hunt, 1994).
The costs of personal selling
According to a 2001 survey, the average cost of
an outside salesperson is in excess of £55 000
per annum (Reward Group/Institute of Sales
and Marketing Management, 2001). Yet the
time actually spent face to face with customers
is typically around 20–30 per cent of working
hours. This raises the question of what form of
communication is both effective and efficient in
today’s marketplace. The most significant dif-
ference between selling and other elements in
the marketing communications mix is the per-
sonal contact, but this comes with a relatively
high price tag. The need for this personal
contact will vary depending on such factors as
the scale of risk, size of investment, type of
customer, frequency of purchase, newness of
product and many other factors. In some
situations the information or persuasion role
can be achieved by impersonal means of
communication, particularly advertising.
Advertising is impersonal, indirect and
aimed at a mass audience, whereas selling is
individual, direct and much more adaptable.
With advertising the message is more limited,
cheaper per contact but unidirectional, relying
on a pull approach rather than personal selling,
which is two-way, but employs a push strategy
and is relatively expensive per contact. Today,
yet another dimension needs to be considered.
This is the role and position of direct marketing
as a form of communications. In Table 14.1, we
compare advertising, direct marketing and
personal selling.
Therefore, a primary task of management
is to be clear on the role of personal selling and
what exactly it is we want salespeople to do.
Information technology (IT) is the set of tech-
nologies related to the processing and commu-
nication of information, including computer
and electronic databases, advanced telecommu-
nications, CD-ROMs and the Internet. These
technologies have led to new and powerful
ways to reach customers and are changing the
way firms interact.
The use of marketing databases, telemar-
keting and the Internet is having a significant
impact on how sales operations are managed
and will continue to do so. For example, the
Internet is a powerful tool for providing infor-
mation and will be an important means of
buyer–seller communication. Many traditional
intermediaries, particularly those who do not
stock a physical product, will find that con-
sumers empower themselves to collect infor-
mation and make the purchase decision. This
changes the information role of salespeople,
and travel agencies, car dealerships and finan-
cial intermediaries are likely to be most affected
by such a process. The demand for secondary
sources of information is passing from a num-
ber of individual and independent sources to
software programs which can browse the Inter-
net and report the findings directly to users